Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years (84 page)

63
. Sam Ervin, Democrat of North Carolina, headed up the committee. The other Democrats were Herman Talmadge of Georgia, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, and Joseph Montoya of New Mexico. The Republicans were Minority Leader Howard Baker of Tennessee, Edward Gurney of Florida, and Lowell Weicker of Connecticut.

64
. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., with Barry Sussman,
Maverick: A Life in Politics
(New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1995), pp. 27–28.

65
. In 1988, Weicker decided to support George H. W. Bush, not Robert J. Dole, in the GOP presidential primaries, in part because of Bush’s ties to Connecticut. “For me and all other Republican candidates in Connecticut, there was more to gain with Bush at the top of the ticket. I supported Bush and he supported me. If that seems cold and calculated, so be it.” (Weicker,
Maverick
, p. 179.)

66
. Author interview with Jack Gleason, April 6, 2008. Round Hill is both an exclusive part of Greenwich and a golf club there.

67
. Weicker,
Maverick
, p. 46.

68
. The six defendants were Bernard Baker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Howard Hunt, Gordon Liddy, Eu-genio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis. James McCord would be sentenced at a later date.

69
. John M. Crewdson, “Nixon Suggests High Court Ruling on Refusing Data,”
New York Times
, March 16, 1973.

70
. The Bull Elephant Club was composed of male assistants to GOP House members.

71
. Stanley I. Kutler,
Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes
(New York: Free Press, 1997), pp. 241–42.

72
. John Ehrlichman,
Witness to Power: The Nixon Years
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), p. 369.

73
. Kutler,
Abuse of Power,
p. 242.

74
. “Telephone conversation, the President and John Dean, March 20, 1973, 7:29–7:43P.M.,”
The
White House Transcripts
(New York: Viking Press, 1974), p. 128.

75
. Ibid., pp. 130–31.

76
. Author interview with Stanley Kutler, July 17, 2008. See also John H. Taylor, “Cutting the NixonTapes,”
American Spectator
, March 1998.

77
. Transcript prepared by the Impeachment Inquiry Staff for the House Judiciary Committee of arecording of a meeting on March 13, 1973, from 12:42 P.M. to 2:00 P.M.

78
. Gordon Strachan, testimony to Senate Watergate Committee, book six.

79
. Transcript of recording of a meeting between the president and John Dean in the Oval Officeon March 17, 1973, from 1:25 P.M. to 2:10 P.M. (H. R. Haldeman was present for only a portion of the meeting.)

11: DOWNING NIXON, PART II: THE EXECUTION

1
. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. with Barry Sussman,
Maverick: A Life in Politics
(Boston, Little, Brown, 1995), pp. 54, 59–60.

2
. According to a February 16, 1972, memo from Gordon Strachan to H. R. Haldeman: “The registration drive (Target ’72) begins in Florida and Texas in January and will continue through the spring. Ed DeBolt at the RNC is the man responsible to register 11.2 million Republicans by May 15 and 8 million by October 1972.” Cited in House Judiciary Report, 1974.

3
. Author interview with Ed DeBolt, August 30, 2008.

4
. Richard J. McGowan, “Watergate Revisited,”
Barnes Review
, March 2003.

5
. Gerald Ford was then House minority leader; in October 1973, Republican leaders would compel Nixon to make Ford his vice president with the resignation of Spiro Agnew over tax evasion and money-laundering charges. Bryce Harlow was a top Washington lobbyist and close friend of Ford’s who had advised every president of both parties since Eisenhower.

6
. Weicker,
Maverick
, p. 63. Back in 1970, according to Gleason, when he had tried to deliver the cash to Weicker, he had not been able to make it all the way to Connecticut that day. Instead, he had made the delivery to Weicker’s campaign committee in Washington, D.C. As Weicker explained to me in a 2008 interview, “Jack didn’t have the time, and I didn’t have the time to meet him, to receive the money personally. And therefore, probably by luck, I escaped the violation of the law. Had I received it, instead of my campaign manager [who duly reported the donation], that would have been something different.”

7
. See, for example, Dean’s post-Watergate books,
Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of
George W. Bush
(New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2004) and
Conservatives Without Conscience
(New York: Viking, 2008).

8
. As noted in chapter 6, Kerr also was the staunchest congressional defender of the oil depletion allowance.

9
. “How John Dean Came Center Stage,”
Time
, June 25, 1973.

10
. Kleindienst was director of field operations for Goldwater in 1964.

11
. Memorandum from Bud Krogh to Trudy Brown, March 2, 1970; memorandum from Bud Kroghto H. R. Haldeman, March 24, 1970. Both available through Nixon Project, National Archives.

12
. Unpublished interview by Len Colodny of John Ehrlichman, April 29, 1986.

13
. Unpublished letter from Charles W. Colson to Len Colodny, July 1, 1993.

14
. Unpublished memorandum from Charles W. Colson to Len Colodny, June 23, 1993.

15
. For more on Prosterman’s programs, see Mark Dowie, “Behind the Myth of Land Reform,”
Mother Jones
, June 1981.

16
. For more on Krogh, Prosterman, and Vietnam, see, generally: Egil “Bud” Krogh with MatthewKrogh,
Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices and Life Lessons from the White House
(New York: public affairs, 2007).

17
. Maureen Dean with Hays Gorey,
“Mo”: A Woman’s View of Watergate
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975), p. 50.

18
. Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin,
Silent Coup: The Removal of a President
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), p. 106.

19
. Transcript of “cancer on the presidency” discussion, March 21, 1973, in Stanley I. Kutler,
Abuse
of Power: The New Nixon Tapes
(New York: Free Press, 1997), pp. 247–57.

20
. G. Gordon Liddy,
Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy
(New York: Macmillan, 1991), pp. 251–52.

21
. Jim Hougan,
Secret Agenda: Watergate, Deep Throat and the CIA
(New York: Random House, 1984), pp. 106–7.

22
. Caulfield worked for Dean throughout 1971, as “Dean’s appetite for political intelligence continuedto increase.” Colodny and Gettlin,
Silent Coup
, p. 106.

23
. Liddy,
Will.
E. Howard Hunt would later confirm Liddy’s version, reporting that Liddy explained, “Dean tells me there’s plenty of money available—half a million.” See Colodny and Gettlin,
Silent Coup
, pp. 116–17. See also James Rosen,
The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of
Watergate
(New York: Doubleday, 2008), pp. 258–75.

24
. G. Gordon Liddy,
Will
.

25
. Colodny and Gettlin,
Silent Coup
, pp. 124–25. Magruder has provided varying and inconsistent accounts over the years. For more on this, see Rosen,
The Strong Man
, pp. 293–95.

26
. For an account of this from Robert Bennett, see the three-hour documentary
John Ehrlichman: In
the Eye of the Storm
(American International Tele vision, 1997), hosted by the author Tom Clancy.

27
. Meeting between President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman in the Oval Office, June 23, 1972, 10:04–11:39 A.M., Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library, College Park, Maryland. (The main Nixon library is located in Yorba Linda, California.)

28
. L. Patrick Gray III, with Ed Gray,
In Nixon’s Web: A Year in the Crosshairs of Watergate
(New York: Times Books, 2008), pp. 64–69.

29
. J. Anthony Lukas, “Good Man’s Bad Book, Bad Man’s Good Book,”
New York Times Book Review
, October 31, 1976.

30
. Weicker,
Maverick
, p. 65.

31
. Ibid., p. x.

32
. Jeff Gerth with Robert Pear, “Files Detail Aid to Bush by Nixon White House,”
New York Times
, June 11, 1992.

33
. Bill Choyke, “Is Fensterwald a CIA Plant?”
Washington Star
, October 4, 1976.

34
. Philip Agee and Louis Wolf,
Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe
(New York: Lyle Stuart, 1978), p. 133.

35
. John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton,
Toxic Sludge Is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public
Relations Industry
(Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1995), pp. 152–53.

36
. Hays Gorey, “John Dean Warns: A Mile to Go,”
Time
, June 4, 1973.

37
. John Dean,
Blind Ambition: The White House Years
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), pp. 314–15.

38
. Ibid., p. 317.

39
. Gleason recalled the origin of Bush’s call this way: Some time in the early spring of 1973, he found some receipts related to the townhouse Operation and brought them over to Bush at the RNC. “I made a decision with my lawyer that I would take Bush a list of the guys who received the cash, just so somebody could alert the members—the few who had gotten elected,” Gleason told me. “Their names were going into the special prosecutor’s hopper. I went down and saw Bush and Tom Lias.”

40
. Weicker,
Maverick
, p. 83.

41
. “Lowell Weicker Gets Mad,”
Time
, July 9, 1973.

42
. Ibid.

43
. Weicker,
Maverick
, p. 76.

44
. Author interview with Lowell Weicker, March 31, 2008.

45
. Colodny and Gettlin,
Silent Coup
, pp. 325–27.

46
. Kutler,
Abuse of Power
, p. 638.

47
. A. Robert Smith, “The Butterfield Exchange,”
New York Times
, July 20, 1975.

48
. Colodny and Gettlin,
Silent Coup
, p. 323.

49
. As Sam Dash, chief counsel to the committee, put it, “The White House knew that Carmine Bellino, a wizard at reconstructing the receipts and expenditures of funds despite laundering techniques . . . was hot on the trail of Nixon’s closest money men, Herbert Kalmbach and Bebe Rebozo.” Samuel Dash,
Chief Counsel: Inside the Ervin Committee—The Untold Story of Watergate
(New York: Random House, 1976), p. 192.